Tips & Tricks #2: In MicroStrategy Web, Report Execution Fails with Error ‘Results for this message cannot be retrieved from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. This might be because the execution has failed. Please contact your administrator.’

I had this error the other day. Fortunately, I had just been reading about working set governor settings the other night to prepare for the CPA and MCE exams.

First, let’s discuss the issue.

Issue/Problem

In MicroStrategy Web, when I executed a report, I received the following error message (also, see screenshot below).

(Results for this message cannot be retrieved from MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. This might be because the execution has failed. Please contact your administrator.)

Basically, what happened was my report request could not be processed. Looking through the MicroStrategy KnowledgeBase, it basically tells you to try to run the report again. If it still throws this error, contact your Administrator.

If you look at the Web Log on the Web Server, you will see an error similar to the following:

<record reset=`true`>
 <package>com.microstrategy.webapi</package>
 <level>SEVERE</level>
 <miliseconds>1157577081154</miliseconds>
 <timestamp>09/06/2006 14:11:21:154</timestamp>
 <thread>154</thread>
 <class>CDSSXMLReportServer</class>
 <method>GetExecutionResultsEx</method>
 <message>(Results for this message cannot be retrieved from 
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. This might be because the
execution has failed. Please contact your administrator.) 
(com.microstrategy.webapi.MSTRWebAPIException)</message>
 <exception>com.microstrategy.webapi.MSTRWebAPIException: 
(Results for this message cannot be retrieved from 
MicroStrategy Intelligence Server. This might be because
the execution has failed. Please contact your 
administrator.)
 at com.microstrategy.webapi.
CDSSXMLReportServer.GetExecutionResultsCommon(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.webapi.
CDSSXMLReportServer.GetExecutionResultsEx(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.objects.
WebReportInstanceImpl.
getExecutionResults(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.objects.
WebReportInstanceImpl.pollForResults(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.objects.
WebReportInstanceImpl.populateUserReportCache(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.objects.
WebReportInstanceImpl.pollStatus(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.beans.
ReportInstanceProxy.pollStatus(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.beans.
ReportBeanImpl.localCollectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.beans.
ReportBeanImpl.doCollectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.beans.
AbstractWebBean.collectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.app.beans.
AbstractAppComponent.collectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.app.beans.
ReportFrameBeanImpl.collectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.app.beans.
AbstractAppComponent.collectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.app.beans.
PageComponentImpl.collectData(Unknown Source)
 at com.microstrategy.web.app.
MSTRWebController.processRequest(Unknown Source)
 </exception>
 <userName>Administrator</userName>
 <clientID>172.19.19.2</clientID>
 </record>

The DSSErrors.log file on the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server contains the following errors:

[Kernel][Error] MsiWorkingSet::PersistMsg(): 
failed to attach RI to msg, error 0x80003F79
 [Kernel][Error] CDSSServerMessage::put_OriginalRI: 
WSResultPool->AddRI for msg xxxx return error 0x80003F79
 [Kernel][Error] CDSSServerMessage::put_OriginalRI: 
WSResultPool->AddRI for msg xxxx return error 0x80003F79
 [Kernel][Error] CDSSServerMessage::GetReportInstance():
get_OriginalRI() return error 0x1

Now what?

Solution

The size of the report that was to be executed has 40MB report cache size while the ‘Maximum RAM for Working Set cache size’ is set as 102,400KB, as shown in the image below:

The MicroStrategy Intelligence Server was unable to swap out the report instances of 40MB in the Working Set.  To resolve this issue, I needed to increase the size of Maximum RAM for Working Set cache to a higher value, for example 512,000KB.

What is the ‘Working Set’ Governor Setting?

When a user runs a report from MicroStrategy Web or Web Universal, the results from the report are added to what is called the working set for that user’s session and stored in memory on the Intelligence Server. The working set is a collection of messages that reference in-memory report instances. A message is added to the working set when a user executes a report or retrieves a message from his or her Inbox.

Working Set Governors

The ‘Working Set file directory’ is the location in the filesystem where the Report Instances may be persisted on disk. A report instance will be persisted on disk in binary format if its size exceeds the limit set by the ‘Maximum RAM for Working Set cache’ governor or none of the report instances in memory can be swapped to make room for the new report instance. The persisted report instance will be persisted as the <filename(GUID)>.po and may be reused if the report is invoked again.

The ‘Maximum RAM for Working Set cache’ is the governor that modulates the size of the WorkingSet Result Pool. The Maximum value is: 2147483647 MB, the Minimum value depends on version and is 200 MB in 9.3.1, and the Default value is: 200 MB. Note that if the value specified is greater then the machines memory it uses the default of 200 MB. The default value is usually sufficient, but if memory issues arise, as noted above, the setting can be increased. Increasing this setting means that the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server may be operating with a higher average memory footprint during its lifecycle, so proper tuning may be needed if memory usage becomes an issue.

Important Notes

• There is no Working Set (WS) for a session created by the MicroStrategy Desktop client.
• This is a MicroStrategy Intelligence Server configuration level setting, so it applies to all the projects and all the users and is not specific to a project. If these settings are changed, MicroStrategy Intelligence Server may need to be restarted.
• The MicroStrategy Working Set is not the same as the Microsoft Windows Operating System Working Set.